From the official announcement:
> MOVING IMAGE PRESENTS
> extensive ANNA MAY WONG RETROSPECTIVE
> Seven-Week Series Includes Many Rare, Imported, and Restored Films
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> Embodying flapper chic while challenging traditional ideas of Chinese womanhood, Los Angeles-born Anna May Wong (1905-1961) achieved stardom despite the racism of her time. From March 4 through April 16, 2006, Museum of the Moving Image will present the most extensive retrospective of her films ever presented.
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> The seven-week series spans the astonishing range of Wong> '> s career, with screenings of more than twenty movies, including five silent films with live musical accompaniment, and several documentaries and newsreels. The series also includes lectures by three guest speakers, offering scholarly and historical perspective on Wong> '> s career. Among the highlights are the first New York showings of five archival 35mm prints from the British Film Institute. These films, like many in the series, have not screened theatrically in New York since their original releases in the 1920s and 1930s. Song, The Pavement Butterfly, and The Flame of Love were the first three movies that Wong made in Europe, all with the popular German director Richard Eichberg. Prints of the British films Tiger Bay and Java Head will also be imported for the series.
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> The silent films include The Toll of the Sea, which featured Wong> '> s breakout performance at the age of seventeen and was the world's first color feature. The first screening of the film, on March 4, will be introduced by professor Shirley Jennifer Lim, who is writing a book on Wong and her contemporary, Josephine Baker, who is the subject of a Museum retrospective from February 17 to 26. Among the other silent films to be shown are The Thief of Bagdad, and Wong> '> s most famous performance, as the scullery maid-turned-nightclub performer in Piccadilly.
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> The Museum> '> s series also includes a selection of Wong> '> s rare > "> B> "> movies from studio archives and private collectors, including Island of Lost Men, King of Chinatown, Daughter of Shanghai, and Bombs Over Burma. These overlooked films, by directors including Robert Florey and Joseph H. Lewis, are adventures marked by terrific energy, candor, and more progressive politics than the Hollywood > "> A> "> features. The April 8 screening of King of Chinatown, a gangster film that is also a tribute to Dr. Margaret > "> Mom> "> Chung, the first known American-born Chinese female physician, will be introduced by Chung> '> s biographer, Dr. Judy Wu.
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> "> It is well known that Wong> '> s characters often met with tragic ends,> "> said assistant curator Livia Bloom, who organized the retrospective. > "> Yet the range of Wong> '> s films, and the glimpses we see in her documentary footage, show how she was able to create of an image of power and self-sufficiency.> ">
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> SCHEDULE FOR > '> ANNA MAY WONG> '>
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> The Toll of the Sea
> Saturday, March 4, 2:00 p.m. Introduced by Dr. Shirley Jennifer Lim with live music by Ben Model
> Sunday, March 5, 2:00 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> 1922, 48 mins. Restored 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. Directed by Chester M. Franklin. With Kenneth Harlan. The first color feature film was also seventeen-year-old Wong> '> s first leading role. In this popular melodrama based on Puccini> '> s Madame Butterfly, Variety singled out > "> the extraordinarily fine playing of Anna May Wong, who is an exquisite crier without glycerin.> "> The March 4 screening will be introduced by Dr. Lim, author of the forthcoming book Performing the Modern: Anna May Wong and Josephine Baker.
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> Piccadilly
> Saturday, March 4, 4:00 p.m. Live music by Ben Model>
> Sunday, March 5, 4:00 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> 1929, 108 mins., United Kingdom. Restored 35mm print. Directed by E. A. Dupont. With Gilda Gray, Charles Laughton. In her most famous performance, Wong is a scullery maid turned nightclub performer who steals the screen-and the leading man-from her rival (Gray). > "> She shimmers and so does this newly restored, alternately blue- and amber-tinted print,> "> writes critic J. Hoberman.
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> Song
> Saturday, March 11, 2:00 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> Sunday, March 12, 2:00 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> 1928, 94 mins., Germany/United Kingdom. Archival 35mm print from the British Film Institute. Directed by Richard Eichberg. With Heinrich George. In her first European film, Wong plays a dancer drawn into a tragic romantic triangle when she meets a cabaret knife thrower and his capricious sweetheart. Song is notable both for Wong> '> s dancing and for the dramatic power of her performance.
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> The Pavement Butterfly
> Saturday, March 11, 4:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> Sunday, March 12, 4:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> 1929, 90 mins, Germany/United Kingdom. Archival 35mm print from the British Film Institute. Directed by Richard Eichberg. With Alexander Granach. As an acrobat framed for murder, Wong escapes to the French Riviera. The film was conceived as a showcase for the actress, who models the latest European flapper fashions surrounded by a bohemian coterie of artists, gangsters, and street performers.
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> The Thief of Bagdad
> Saturday, March 18, 1:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin
> 1924, 140 mins. Directed by Raoul Walsh. With Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Snitz Edwards, Charles Belcher, Julanne Johnston. Fairbanks, who wrote, produced, and starred in this lavish, action-packed Arabian Nights-inspired epic, was so impressed by The Toll of the Sea that he cast Wong as a double-crossing > "> Mongol Slave.> "> She delivered a sultry, scene-stealing performance that launched her to stardom.
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> Chu Chin Chow
> Saturday, March 18, 4:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 19, 4:30 p.m.
> 1934, 95 mins., United Kingdom. Restored archival 35mm print. Directed by Walter Ford. With George Robey. Wong plays a spirited, dangerous slave in this dark musical retelling of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a film notable for its elaborate dance numbers, mobile camera work, and glamorous, ornate production design. Preceded by Hollywood on Parade 1933, 20 mins. 35mm print from the Library of Congress. Produced by Louis Lewyn. With Eddie Kane. Wong recites a Chinese poem in this revue-style short.
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> A Study in Scarlet
> Sunday, March 19, 2:00 p.m. Introduced by Elaine Mae Woo
> 1933, 71 mins., United Kingdom. Directed by Edwin L. Marin. With Reginald Owen. Wong is at her sinister best as a suspicious widow in this Sherlock Holmes murder mystery whose action unwinds through London> '> s dark alleys and underground passageways. The screening will be introduced by collector and scholar Elaine Mae Woo, who is making a documentary about Anna May Wong. Preceded by The Limejuice Mystery 1930, 8 mins., United Kingdom. Archival 16mm print from the Library of Congress. Directed by Jack Harrison. This comic short features the marionettes > "> Herlock Shomes> "> and > "> Anna Went Wrong.> ">
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> The Flame of Love
> Saturday, March 25, 2:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 26, 2:00 p.m.
> 1930, 80 mins., United Kingdom. Archival 35mm print from the British Film Institute. Directed by Richard Eichberg. With John Longden. Eichberg directed three versions of this same script, in German, French and English, with Wong speaking each language and acting opposite three different leading men. She plays a dancer in prerevolutionary Russia who attracts the love of a Grand Duke and a young officer. A passionate kiss was cut from the film, but still The New York Times reported, > "> There is plenty of lovemaking, both sacred and profane, and> ...> the audience is allowed to see a good deal of [Miss Wong] in various varieties of inextensive attire.> ">
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> Daughter of the Dragon
> Saturday, March 25, 4:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 26, 4:30 p.m.
> 1931, 70 mins. Restored 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. Directed by Lloyd Corrigan. With Warner Oland, Sessue Hayakawa. Impressed with her success abroad, Paramount gave Wong the lead in this thriller based on the pulp best-seller Daughter of Fu Manchu. As Princess Ling Moy, Wong must avenge the death of her father, Fu Manchu, who is the embodiment of negative Asian stereotypes. > "> The picture proves that white actors impersonating Orientals seemed more the Chinese type than did the two principal Oriental players,> "> sneered Variety, exemplifying the prevalent racism of the time. Preceded by Hearst Newsreel Outtakes: > "> Anna May Wong Visits Shanghai> "> 1936, 8 mins. From the UCLA Film and TV Archive. Rare footage of Wong> '> s travels to China.
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> Shanghai Express
> Friday, March 24, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 25, 6:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 26, 6:30 p.m.
> 1932, 80 mins. Restored 35mm print from UCLA Film and TV Archive. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. With Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Warner Oland. In Josef von Sternberg> '> s classic film, Wong and Dietrich are notorious women of the night whose train is hijacked by rebel Chinese. Wong> '> s cool character remains aloof to snubs by her fellow passengers, all of whose lives she saves.
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> Tiger Bay
> Saturday, April 1, 2:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 2, 2:00 p.m.
> 1933, 70 mins., United Kingdom. Archival 35mm print from the British Film Institute. Directed by J. Elder Wills. With Henry Victor. Wong plays a dancer and owner of a popular port city nightclub who risks everything to defend a couple against a gang of street thugs.
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> Java Head
> Saturday, April 1, 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 2, 4:00 p.m.
> 1934, 85 mins., United Kingdom. Archival 35mm print from the British Film Institute. Directed by J. Walter Ruben. With Elizabeth Allan, Ralph Richardson. In this tragic melodrama of interracial love, Wong plays a newly-married Chinese princess who moves to England only to be snubbed by her in-laws and then by her husband, who mocks her > "> pagan> "> traditions.
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> Daughter of Shanghai
> Saturday, April 8, 2:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 9, 2:00 p.m.
> 1937, 61 mins. Directed by Robert Florey. With Philip Ahn, Larry > "> Buster> "> Crabbe, Anthony Quinn. This action-packed thriller about a woman trying to avenge her murdered father and destroy a gang of immigrant smugglers. It is unusual for its time, featuring two top-billed Asian co-stars (Wong and Ahn). Preceded by Hollywood Party 1937, 21mins. Directed by Roy Rowland. With Clark Gable, Joan Bennett, Joe E. Brown. This rare Technicolor footage of Wong shows the actress modeling fashions acquired during her recent trip to China.
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> King of Chinatown
> Saturday, April 8, 4:30 p.m. Introduced by Dr. Judy Wu
> 1939, 60 mins. Directed by Nick Grinde. With Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Quinn. This gangster film is also a tribute to Dr. Margaret > "> Mom> "> Chung, the first American-born Chinese female physician and founder of the first clinic in San Francisco> '> s Chinatown. Based on Chung, Wong> '> s character is a surgeon who saves a mobster> '> s life. The screening will be introduced by Dr. Judy Wu, author of the biography Dr. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards.
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> Dangerous to Know
> Sunday, April 9, 4:30 p.m.
> 1938, 68 mins. Directed by Robert Florey. With Akim Tamiroff. This gangster film, the second of Wong> '> s collaborations with Robert Florey, was based on her popular Broadway play On the Spot; she plays the possessive > "> hostess> "> of a Los Angeles mobster.
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> Island of Lost Men
> Saturday, April 15, 2:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 16, 2:00 p.m.
> 1939, 63 mins. Directed by Kurt Neumann. With J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Quinn. In this atmospheric potboiler photographed by Karl Struss (> Sunrise), Wong poses as a nightclub singer to infiltrate the tropical lair of a notorious gangster. Sparks fly between her and a handsome secret agent (Anthony Quinn). Preceded by Bold Journey: > "> Native Land> "> 1957, 30 mins. From the UCLA Film and TV Archive. Wong narrates this television documentary about her 1936 trip to China.
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> Bombs over Burma
> Saturday, April 15, 4:30 p.m.
> 1942, 67 minutes. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. With Noel Madison. B-movie legend Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy) directed this wartime thriller starring Wong as a Chinese schoolteacher sent on a mission to help the Allied cause by exposing a Nazi spy.
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> Lady from Chungking
> Sunday, April 16, 4:30 p.m.
> 1942, 71 mins. Directed by William Night. With Harold Huber, Mae Clarke. In this low-budget anti-Japanese war movie, her final starring role, Wong plays a Chinese guerilla leader who seduces a Japanese general in order to rescue two captured American fighter pilots.
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> MUSEUM INFORMATION
> Hours: Wednesdays & Thursdays, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Fridays, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturdays & Sundays, 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Tuesday, school groups only by appointment.)
> Additional Midwinter Recess Hours: Monday & Tuesday, February 20 & 21, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
> Film Screenings: Fridays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
> Museum Admission: $10.00 for adults; $7.50 for persons over 65 and for students with ID; $5.00 for children ages 5-18. Children under 5 and Museum members are admitted free. Admission to the galleries is free on Fridays, 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.
> Location: 35 Avenue at 36 Street in Astoria.
> Subway: R or V trains (R or G on weekends) to Steinway Street. N or W trains to 36 Avenue.
> Program Information: Telephone: (718) 784-0077; Website: www.movingimage.us
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> Museum of the Moving Image receives support from numerous corporations, foundations, and individuals, and vital funding from the City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Additional government support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Natural Heritage Trust (administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation).
